Patent Document 1 discloses a method and an apparatus, which use a peeling member having a tip-end, for peeling optical film sheets supported on a carrier film together with an adhesive layer from the carrier film under peeling action of the peeling member and winding operation of a long web of a carrier film which one of opposite surfaces thereof is folded to inside at the tip-end of the peeling member, and laminating the optical film sheets to respective one of panel components. Referring to FIG. 3 of Patent Document 1, there is shown a plurality of optical film sheets Xα, Xβ continuously supported via an adhesive layer 12 on one of opposite surfaces of a carrier film 13, and referring to FIG. 9 of Patent Document 1, there is shown a part of an apparatus for peeling the optical film sheet Xα together with an adhesive layer 12 from the carrier film 13 under peeling action of the peeling member and winding operation of a long web of a carrier film, and laminating the optical film sheet Xα to a panel component W at a lamination station B where an edge detecting unit 190 for detecting a leading end of the optical film sheet Xα at a tip-end of the peeling member 201 and a laminating unit 200 including lamination rollers are arranged.
Patent Document 2 also discloses a method and an apparatus, which use a peeling member having a tip-end, for peeling an optical film sheet supported on a carrier film together with an adhesive layer from a carrier film under peeling action of the peeling member and winding operation of a long web of a carrier film which one of opposite surfaces thereof is folded to inside at the tip-end of the peeling member, and laminating the plurality of optical film sheets to respective ones of panel components. Referring to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 of the Patent Document 2, there are shown a part of the apparatus for laminating a plurality of optical film sheets F to respective ones of panel components W by activating lamination rollers 25, 26, when a leading end of the optical film sheet F with an adhesive layer partially peeled from a carrier film S at a tip-end of a peeling member 14 is protruded from the tip-end of the peeling member 14 to establish so-called “head-out” state and a laminating position of the panel component W is overlapped to a part of the optical film sheet F.
Patent Document 3 discloses a method and an apparatus for peeling an optical film sheet (i.e., film piece) 5 with an adhesive surface formed on a carrier film (i.e., a releasing film) 6 included in an optical film laminate (i.e., a band-shaped film) 4, thereby detecting a position of a leading end of the optical film sheet (i.e., film piece) 5 in a head-out state by a position detecting means 38, and correcting the position of the leading end of the optical film sheet 5 based on the detected positional information thereof.
Recently, a television mainly uses a liquid-crystal display device. A liquid-crystal (LC) cell for a television has a size of 18 inches (450 mm) even for a small one, and the size exceeds 60 inches (1500 mm) for a large one. Thickness of such LC cell is 1.4 mm which is 3 times or more than that of a LC cell for a slate-PC, and weight is 300 to 3,500 g. On the other hand, smartphones and tablet terminals are universally distributed as high-performance portable terminals with built-in battery. Those portable terminals are referred as slate-PCs, and in many cases, a middle- or small-sized liquid-crystal display device is used as an optical display device. A Liquid-crystal display panel used for a middle- or small-sized liquid-crystal display device in general is configured to include a LC cell with a size of about 5 to 10 inches (120 to 250 mm), a color filter (CF) arranged on a viewing side of a LC cell, and a thin-film transistor (TFT) arranged on a non-viewing side thereof, and thickness of a LC cell is about 0.5 mm and weight thereof is about 15 to 40 g.
Thus, processing capacity not required for a manufacturing system of liquid-crystal display device for a television is required for a manufacturing system of the middle- or small-sized liquid-crystal display devices used for such slate-PCs. For example, a process of laminating an optical film sheet comprising a polarizing film sheet to both of opposite surfaces of a liquid-crystal display panel requires laminating accuracy and manufacturing speed of two times higher than those of a manufacturing system of liquid-crystal display device for a television. Requirements for processing capacity of slate-PCs are different from those of a liquid-crystal display device for a television including, but not limited to, facilitating processing to reduce weight, minimizing contamination in a clean room surrounding an entire manufacturing line by minimizing dead-space and devising means and devices to facilitate processing an optical film laminate having a long-web of carrier film as a base.
That is, in case of middle- or small-sized liquid-crystal display devices used in slate PCs, a liquid-crystal display panel LC used therefor is small and light as a size of the liquid-crystal display panel LC is about ⅓ to ⅕ and a weight thereof is less than 1/20 of those of a large liquid-crystal display device. A roll of an optical film laminate based on a long web of a carrier film supporting a plurality of optical film sheets to be laminated to respective one of liquid-crystal display panel LCs is also narrow in width and ⅓ to 1/10 in weight. The roll is, for example, 500 mm in diameter, about 100 to 150 mm in width, and 30 to 70 kg in weight. Roll length of such an optical film laminate is about 900 m. However, manufacturing speed i.e., cycle time for such middle- or small-sized liquid-crystal display device is required to be two times higher than that for a large liquid-crystal display device, and laminating accuracy for an optical film sheet, such as a polarizing film supported on a carrier film, to be laminated to a liquid-crystal panel LC is also very severe.
A technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to achieve required laminating accuracy while maintaining cycle time required for laminating a panel component and an optical film sheet, and to provide a method and an apparatus for manufacturing an optical display device applicable to middle- and small-sized liquid-crystal display devices such as those used for slate-PCs.
A liquid-crystal display panel to be used as a panel component for a liquid-crystal display device of a slate PC is typically configured with, but not limited to, a liquid-crystal cell (LC) having two glass substrates with a liquid-crystal layer L filled therebetween, and a size of about 5 to 10 inches (120 to 250 mm), a thickness of about 0.5 mm and a weight of 15 to 40 g. Cycle time per a panel component is limited to some extent, and laminating accuracy allowed during the cycle time is at least about ±0.5 mm.